Fallout: The True Story of the CIA's Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking

PUBLISHER

Free Press

CITY

New York, NY

DATE PUBLISHED

2011

ISBN

978-1-4391-8306-9

Fallout, while chronicling actual events, reads like an espionage novel about nuclear proliferation and counterproliferation spanning the past thirty years. The genesis of the book was a Swiss parliamentary report on the link between nuclear trafficking and political authority. Interviews and documents from diverse locations around the globe form the basis for the engaging story. It involves the nuclear black market created by A. Q. Khan, the scientist credited with developing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and providing critical nuclear technology to at least three other nations – Iran, Libya, and North Korea (DPRK). The authors, investigative journalists, follow the activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the intelligence agencies of other nations as they balance apprehending guilty individuals with protecting their sources and methods. It concludes with the successful efforts of the U.S. President George W. Bush administration and CIA to coerce the Swiss into dropping the charges against the Tinners, Swiss father and two sons, suspected of nuclear proliferation and destroying the evidence associated with those charges. The Tinners had worked for the CIA as agents within the Khan network. In the case of the Khan’s nuclear mafia, the narrative shows how the CIA’s efforts to protect bad judgements and operational errors constitute a danger to the security of the United States and the world.